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LIGHT 



PATHWAY OF HOLINESS. 



By Rev. L. D. M'CABE, D.D. 






♦.. 



NEW YORK : 
CARLTON & LANAHAK 

SAN FRANCISCO: E. THOMAS. 

CINCINNATI: HITCHCOCK & WALDEN. 

1871. 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by 

CARLTON & LANAHAN, 

in the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 



The Library 
of Congress 



:i 



WASHINGTON 



PREFACE. 



Ik entering, some years since, upon a re- 
examination of the difficult subject of Holi- 
ness, I found that all the light which I had 
previously received, whether from reading, 
instruction, or meditation, was inadequate 
to the demands of my own reason, and 
also to answer the numerous inquiries 
propounded to me by my discriminating 
pupils. Unsatisfied and wearied with all 
that I had ever seen or heard in explana- 
tion of its unexplained mysteries, I sat 
down, not to reading and collating, but to 
patient and prayerful thought. I soon 
discovered, as it seemed to me, a new line 



4 Preface. 

of light through all the darkness and in- 
tricacy of the subject. That line of light 
and truth I pursued until I reached a fall 
and luminous understanding of all the 
difficulties which present themselves to 
the candid student upon the subject of 
salvation from sin. In the views I thus 
obtained I still feel great confidence, and 
now rest in them with ineffable satisfac- 
tion. I read the results of my investiga- 
tions to two great men, eminent servants 
of the Church : each exclaimed, " It is all 
new, and why it is not all true I cannot 
now see." Those gentlemen, and many 
others, requested me to publish my expli- 
cation of that which had never been satis- 
factorily explained. Having consented to 
yield to their request, I now very sincerely 
and very humbly hope that what I have 
written may be useful to the Church of 



Preface. 5 

God, which he purchased with his blood. 
To one who is spiritually wise, usefulness 
transcends all other considerations, and 
eliminates from the soul the taint of self- 
seeking. And now, if any one desire to 
know the precise change which is wrought 
in the soul in the work of regeneration; 
just what is then done and what is left 
undone; why no more is accomplished; 
why no greater or more thorough moral 
cleansing is effected ; what is the true defi- 
nition of regeneration ; what, definitely, is 
sanctification ; what the generic distinc- 
tion between regeneration and sanctifica- 
tion; how great the heresy that teaches 
that sanctification can be attained simply 
through gradual growth; how imminent 
the danger of apostasy to all the merely 
justified ; how absolute the necessity that 
Christians be sinless; how those dying in 



6 Preface. 

a state of justification, but without the wit- 
ness of sanctification, can be saved; and 
how many other mysteries in the processes 
of the purification of a fallen human soul 
may be unfolded — 1 very modestly think 
he can find in the following pages satis- 
factory responses. But if a patient and 
candid perusal of these pages do not af- 
ford satisfying solutions of these great and 
most interesting problems, I am persuaded 
that it must be attended with suggestions 
that must amply reward the reader for 
all his time and effort. And if I have 
spoken the truth as it is in Jesus, may He 
make it an inestimable blessing to all who 
will patiently, thoughtfully, and devoutly 
read ! 

Ohio Wesleyan University, 

Delaware, Ohio, 



LIGHT 



ON 



THE PATHWAY OF HOLINESS. 



1. Maist possesses one faculty which is 
not under the law of cause and effect: 
which is not fettered by any other faculty, 
or controlled by any other agency, human 
or divine. Under the provisions of the 
Gospel the Will is perfectly free. 

The will is a fountain of causation. It 
is in man a fountain of finite causation as 
truly as God's will is a fountain of infinite 
causation. Our perceptivities, receptivi- 
ties, and sensibilities are, in their opera- 
tions, the occasions but not the causes of 
our volitions. 



8 Light 011 the Pathway of Holiness. 

The will is the executive of the other 
faculties. That we may be happy, our 
will must choose the right, the reasonable, 
the proper, and the worthy. The will 
can depress us to the depths of degrada- 
tion and ruin, if it choose to place the 
affections on objects unworthy of their 
devotion. If it choose the wrong, or be 
restrained from choosing the right, or be 
constrained by overpowering surroundings, 
or by the subtle influence of evil spirits, to 
do what is wicked, harmony among our 
sensibilities cannot be preserved, nor that 
character be achieved which would be a 
source of inward gratification. 

2. Man is made accountable both to 
himself and to his Creator. To himself, in 
order that he may enjoy the high rewards 
of self-respect ; and to his Creator, that he 
may enjoy the rewards which the Creator 



Light on the Pathway of Holiness 9 

promises to loyalty. But God could not 
make a being justly accountable who is not 
a free agent. It would be unjust to call 
any being to an account whose will is not 
free and causative. 

If an accountable being is not rewarded 
for obedience and punished for disobe- 
dience, there is no significancy in account- 
ability. Therefore an accountable being 
must be placed in a state of trial. He 
must be subjected to trial in order to test 
his loyalty to truth, right, conscience, and 
the will of God. If he is to be rewarded 
or punished, he must be tested in order to 
furnish evidence of merit or of demerit. 
He must be tested in order, also, to develop 
a capacity to enjoy the rewards promised 
to obedience. These prime ends — indis- 
pensable to an accountable being — can be 
secured in no other way. 



io Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 

The test may vary in kind and in de- 
gree. In fact, few human beings are tested 
precisely alike. But it is required of each 
that he endure a trial sufficient to evince 
loyalty, merit, and a capacity to enjoy the 
rewards of self-respect and of heaven. A 
person who is incapable of such a test can- 
not be accountable. He who endures such 
a test successfully, compasses the great ends 
of his creation. 

A trial of obedience requires that there 
should be difficulties in obeying. If a 
moral agent is to be rewarded for obedi- 
ence, it must be because it is difficult to 
obey. If punishment is denounced against 
disobedience, it must be because it is easy 
to disobey. Obedience is indispensable to 
reward; but an obedience which requires 
no effort, no self-denial, cannot merit a re- 
ward. Resistance to evil is indispensable 



Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 1 1 

to reward; but that resistance cannot be 
meritorious, unless it be easy to yield to 
the solicitations of evil. For virtue to 
merit a reward, requires that it should be 
difficult to be virtuous, and easy to be 
vicious. A trial of one's loyalty to God 
requires that loyalty should have its dif- 
ficulties, and disloyalty its attractions. 
Without these difficulties on the one hand, 
and these attractions on the other, there 
could be no valid test; none adequate to 
secure the necessary ends of probation. 
Without them a test would be a mere pre- 
tense, a sham trial, devoid of results and 
of significance. 

3. To those sinless beings to whom all 
things seem as they really are, vice can 
have no attractions. Vice can have no 
objective attractions — none per se. On the 
contrary, all its attractions must be wholly 



12 Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 

subjective in their character, and must be 
wholly dependent, in gaining access to the 
soul, on the perceptive and receptive facul- 
ties and the sensibilities. To the essence 
of the soul — to that substratum in which 
all its powers inhere — vice can present no 
attractions. For in the essence of an un- 
fallen soul there is no predisposition to 
commit sin. God did not, could not, put 
into it any sinful tendency. All its innate 
tendencies and appetences are holy.* It 
is consequently averse to, loathes, all sin, 
all unholiness. If, therefore, it were possi- 
ble for sin to address its attractions or so- 
licitations directly to this essence, they 

* True, there exists in such a soul a possibility of sin- 
ning, for such a possibility is indispensable to account- 
ability. There also exists a susceptibility of sin, for 
such susceptibility is indispensable to a possibility of 
sinning. But these do not constitute a sinful tendency. 
They are entirely compatible with perfect holiness. 



Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 13 

would be rejected and spurned instantane- 
ously. They would be rejected with all 
that decisiveness and certainty which char- 
acterize the workings of the great law 
of cause and effect. But this instinctive 
promptness in rejecting the solicitations of 
sin thus addressed to the soul would pre- 
clude the possibility of an adequate trial. 
In such a case, the difficulties of obedience 
and the attractions of sin would be insuf- 
ficient for that purpose. It is not, there- 
fore, to the essence of the soul that the 
test of obedience and loyalty could be 
addressed. Neither could it be addressed 
to the will, for there is nothing in the 
will upon which the attractions of sin could 
directly act. 

But, on the other hand, in the sensibili- 
ties, and in the perceptive and receptive 
faculties, we find a capacity to be addressed 



14 Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 

by the attractions of sin, and also all the 
conditions requisite for an adequate test 
of the soul's loyalty to God. 

The sensibilities are not capable of self- 
regulation, but move as they are moved 
upon. Nevertheless, they manifestly exert 
a great influence upon the operations of 
the intellect and upon the decisions of the 
will. 

If, therefore, the normal action of the 
emotions, the propensities, the desires, the 
affections, be once materially disturbed by 
the solicitations or attractions of sin ; if, 
by such influence, these innocent sensibili- 
ties be unduly intensified and urged into 
self-gratification beyond the limits of pro- 
priety and the claims of holiness; if even 
one sensibility be thus disproportionately 
intensified and indulged, or if an inferior 
sensibility be brought to exert an undue 



Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 15 

influence over, and finally to control, a 
superior one — the way would be prepared 
for a permanent derangement in the opera- 
tions of the sensibilities — for a permanent 
interference with their proper and holy 
exercise. Such abnormal action once be- 
gun in the sensibilities might be followed 
by erroneous perceptions and false reason- 
ings, and might also be sanctioned and en- 
forced by the decisions of the will. Thus 
moral evil might secure an effectual and 
permanent lodgment in the soul. Mani- 
festly the attractions of sin, directed with 
a view to this disastrous and far-reaching 
result, would be directed not to induce, at 
the first, the performance of an act wicked 
in itself, but rather such action or condi- 
tion of the sensibilities, and such erroneous 
perceptions, as might with the greatest 
probability be followed by wrong volitions. 



1 6 Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 

4. From the very limitations of a pro- 
bationary being — limitations in thought, 
knowledge, experience, and observation — 
misapprehensions would be likely to arise ; 
misapprehensions, for example, as to the 
pleasures or benefits to be derived from a 
proposed gratification, as to the turpitude 
of an act suggested and contemplated, as 
to the extent of his obligation to the Crea- 
tor, as to the certainty and intensity of the 
evils to result from a deflection from duty, 
as to the extent of the effects of those evils 
upon himself, and as to the difficulties to 
be overcome in securing a restoration to 
holiness or to the forfeited favor of God. 
Such misapprehensions could not be pre- 
vented, we think, except by illuminations 
from a higher intelligence. 

But, in order to secure to a probation- 
ary being a test adequate to satisfy the 



Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 17 

essential conditions of accountability, sin 
or fallen spirits must also be permitted to 
exercise upon his mind such blinding and 
deceiving influences as would make obedi- 
ence difficult and disobedience easy. Hence 
misapprehensions, as well as misleading 
desires, might be originated and fostered 
from without. And we may be sure that, 
whatever their cause or source, they would 
furnish favorable opportunities for sin to 
exert its fascinations, its blinding and de- 
ceptive influences, upon the mind. 

But might not God give to probationary 
beings such illuminations as, if they did 
not prevent all misapprehensions, would 
with entire certainty guard against any 
pernicious consequences from them? We 
think not. 

In the government of accountable beings 

it must be provided with scrupulous exact- 

2 



1 8 Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 

ness that their wills should be entirely un- 
traniraeled. The essential conditions of 
freedom must in no way be disturbed. 
The blinding and deceiving influences of 
sin or of fallen spirits must not be beyond 
the capacity of each moral agent to endure ; 
since, if they were so, it would be unjust 
to arraign and punish him for yielding in 
the hour of trial. Yet they must be strong 
enough to furnish an adequate test. Take 
these influences away, and no such test 
could be secured. Without * them, there 
could be no value or propriety in any sys- 
tem of probation anywhere in Jehovah's 
dominions. 

For the same reason, there must be 
limitations to the knowledge, to the illu- 
minations, possessed by the probationary 
agent. Had God more fully illumined the 
mind of Eve — could she, with a clearer and 



Light 011 the Pathway of Holiness. 19 

broader vision, have seen the consequences 
of her contemplated sin — could she have 
seen virtue in all its attractions — promptly 
she would have rejected the fascinations 
spread out before her eyes, those addressed 
to her instinctive love of beauty, knowledge, 
and power, and those whispered in hsr ear 
by a malignant but wily foe. But under 
such excess of knowledge her decision, her 
choice of obedience, would have been no 
evidence of loyalty, and no reason why 
she should be rewarded. From that choice 
there could have resulted no higher excel- 
lence of soul, no progress toward the great 
ends of probation. For the realization of 
such ends she needed to be placed where, 
in order to show her loyalty, she must re- 
sist unholy influences, maintain harmony 
and purity in her affections, stand trust- 
fully and obediently amid the darkness of 



20 Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 

misapprehensions, and in triumph pass the 
assaults of temptation. The attractions 
of vice needed to be strong enough to af- 
ford her an adequate test, but not in the 
least to exceed her capacities of endurance, 
or in the least to control her choice. Nor 
did they. 

5. Notwithstanding all the attractions 
of vice, all its blinding and deceptive in- 
fluences, without the consent and choice 
of her will they could not have disturbed 
the proper action of the sensibilities of her 
soul. However strong the temptations 
which assailed her, they would have been 
harmless but for the consent of her will. 
It was in the free but wrong exercise of 
this faculty that her demerit consisted. 
When her will chose to yield to an im- 
proper and abnormal exercise and impulse 
of her sensibilities, a moral disturbance 



Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 21 

was at once produced among those sensi- 
bilities—a disturbance which broke down 
the harmony and unsettled the relations 
which God had instituted between them, 
and which finally perverted and reversed 
the whole action of the moral sensibilities 
of the soul And when this disturbance 
of the sensibilities was effected, moral dis- 
order, a depraved state, a condition of sin- 
fulness, passed down into the essence of the 
soul. Then the state, the condition, and 
character of the soul became essentially 
sinful. In this way moral evil was intro- 
duced into the soul and into the universe. 

This is my solution of this great prob- 
lem of the ages. For myself, I see in it no 
indistinctness; nothing untrustworthy or 
unsatisfactory. Those favored with clearer 
vision may; and if so, I would with joy 
wait at their feet for instruction. 



22 Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 

Having thus enunciated my views in 
relation to the introduction of moral evil 
into the essence of the soul, I desire now 
to explain the process, as I understand it, 
by which this state of sinfulness may be 
thoroughly removed. 

The soul once fallen and depraved 
through a deliberate choice of sin, is un- 
able to atone for its violation of a holy 
law. It is destitute of that recuperative 
power by which it could exchange its state 
of sinfulness for its former state of holiness. 
If its present depraved condition and char- 
acter be ever removed, it must be by the 
interposition of mercy and omnipotence. 
It is hopelessly lost unless illumination, 
power, and impulse be communicated to it 
by God himself. 

In virtue of the atonement God can 
come into the soul thus depraved and im- 



Light on the Pathtvay of Holiness. - 23 

potent, without doing any violence to the 
principle of justice. He can impart to it 
the needed information, impress on it its 
lost condition, convince it of the Divine 
existence and of its own accountability, 
and awaken its apprehensions of future 
punishment. He can quicken its sensi- 
bilities, arouse the conscience, and com- 
municate power to the will by which it 
may again become unconstrained and un- 
restrained in its choice and action. But 
justice forbids that these things should be 
done to a degree which would in the least 
interfere with its free agency. God may 
give it only that degree of aid by which, 
in the exercise of its own free will, it can 
begin a life of obedience; that degree of 
aid which will render its continuance in 
wickedness without excuse. 

Doubtless God could, in the exercise of 



24 Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 

his omnipotence, overwhelm a sinner with 
such visions of the invisible world and the 
agonies of the lost — of the hazards and the 
enemies which beset his way — that there 
would be no such thing as the untram- 
meled exercise of his will. But, as we 
have already seen, to qualify a moral agent 
for the rewards of self-respect and for the 
Divine approval, he must demonstrate his 
loyalty to conscience and to the Divine 
government by his unconstrained choice 
of the right, and of obedience to God. 
Hence, the information, impulse, and power 
imparted to him must be sufficient to afford 
him a fair opportunity to prove his loyalty, 
and yet not sufficient to interfere with his 
freedom. If more is imparted than is suffi- 
cient for bestowing such an opportunity, 
all merit in the choices of the will is there- 
by destroyed, and the achievement of that 



Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 25 

character prevented which could either 
merit or enjoy reward. A choice under 
such circumstances would be a constrained 
one. and not such as would evince to the 
intelligent universe any inward rectitude 
of nature, or any worthiness of character. 
Rewards are promised in consideration of 
continued loyalty to righteousness in those 
trials in which it is difficult to be virtu- 
ous and easy to be vicious. Faithfulness 
in hazardous trials is the only adequate 
evidence of personal merit or of inward 
worthiness. On the other hand, it would 
be unjust to hold a sinner accountable 
if the temptations which are permitted 
to assail him are beyond his strength to 
resist and overcome. Satan, if unrestrained, 
we may believe, could so excite in him 
wicked thoughts and feelings, so overwhelm 
him with diabolical influences, and array 



26 Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 

before him sinful gratifications with such 
fascinating charms, that the calm freedom 
required for deliberate choice would be 
utterly impossible. 

In order, then, to show a record and a 
character that will entitle a man to reward 
on the ground of desert, he must not have 
too visibly before him either the rewards 
of obedience or the consequences of dis- 
obedience. Impressions too powerful, at- 
tractions too strong, obligations too deeply 
felt, or dangers too visibly seen, w T ould so 
influence volition as to preclude the possi- 
bility of an adequate trial. The will must 
be left to choose under circumstances and 
in view of motives which will evince and 
improve the moral nature of the soul. 

Now, if a sinner, upon the reception of a 
divine illumination and impulse sufficient, 
and only sufficient, to arouse a soul dead 



Light on the Pathway of Holiness, 27 

in trespasses and in sins, does bestir him- 
self, does resolve to escape the wrath to 
come, he soon reaches that point where he 
sees the necessity of forsaking all sins. 
The moment he fully resolves to give up 
and break away from all sin, God imparts 
to him the power of saving faith. Up to 
this point in his experience his faith in 
Jesus Christ is an historical faith ; and such 
a faith, while it may change one's views or 
opinions, cannot change his relations to 
God, nor change his moral character. No 
faith can do this except that appropriating 
faith which is the gift of God. This is 
the faith, and the only faith, by which the 
righteous maintain their spiritual life. 
Whenever the sinner is ready to forsake, and 
does forsake, his sins, God bestows on him 
this new power of appropriating faith. It 
would be useless to bestow it before, for 



28 Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 

Christ cannot save a soul from its sins 
while it is clinging to them. And if the 
seeker of salvation refuses to exercise his 
will-power sufficiently to break off his sins, 
he cannot exercise the greater will-power 
to believe on Jesus unto justification. 
This divinely-bestowed power, by which a 
truly repentant soul can trust in the merits 
of Jesus Christ for pardon, is varied in 
degree, is graduated according to the ne- 
cessities of each individual seeker, so that 
in the exercise of faith there shall be no 
interference with his freedom. In order to 
secure perfect freedom to the w T ill one per- 
son may need more of this power than an- 
other. God might so impart to the seeker 
of salvation this supernatural power, or so 
impel his soul to exercise the power to be- 
lieve, to rely, to trust, that his will would 
have little or no freedom in the act of 



Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 29 

faith — in the work of his justification. 
But this would be a departure from the 
fundamental principles of the economy of 
grace. Sufficient of this power to believe 
to the saving of the soul must be given, 
to leave him who continues in unbelief 
without excuse. More than this would vio- 
late his freedom, would interfere with his 
power of contrary choice. And now, if 
the seeker, at this point, does exercise this 
power of saving faith thus divinely be- 
stowed, God freely justifies him, removes 
from his conscience its load of guilt, and he 
is thus introduced into the glorious state 
of justification unto life. 

But it would be useless to pardon his 
past sins without at the same time bestow- 
ing upon the believer — the one now be- 
lieving — power sufficient to keep himself 
from deliberate sinning in all the future. 



30 Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 

Otherwise he would fall into sin -as soon 
as he was justified. Therefore at the mo- 
ment of his pardon, of his justification, 
God does by the power and operation of 
the Holy Spirit invigorate all his moral 
faculties. And this work, which God 
performs in the soul concomitant w 7 ith 
justification, has been universally termed 
regeneration. 

The precise change thus wrought in the 
soul at the time of justification, and called 
by all theologians regeneration, has never 
been satisfactorily stated and defined. Nay, 
all theological writers who have discussed 
the subject, including Wesley, Watson, and 
John Fletcher, have left it an unexplained 
mystery ; and hence on this point the mind 
of the Church has never been at rest. 
" Every effort that I have made," says Dr. 
R. S. Foster, in his recent excellent work 



Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 3 1 

on Christian Purity, a to define clearly to 
my own mind precisely what is meant by 
sin in believers, has deepened the convic- 
tion that the subject is one of manifold 
difficulty, and about which there is great 
confusedness of thought. I find evidences 
of obscurity in all the writings about it. 
The most eminent divines are not clear. 
They all agree in the fact ; but when they 
attempt to explain they become confused. 
The difficulty is to make plain what that 
sin is, from which Christian men are not 
free; which remains in, or is found still 
cleaving to believers : how to discriminate 
between the some sin that is removed in 
regeneration, and the some sin that re- 
mains. And it is just around this point 
that revolves the whole question of entire 
sanctification, both as to what it is, and its 
possibility. Sanctification has to do with 



32 Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 

that sin which remains; it removes that 
remainder f sin. Regeneration took some 
sin away ; sanctification takes away what 
was left. How important that the subject 
be made clear! The desideratum is clear 
discrimination, so as to know what we 
mean by the some that is taken away and 
the some that is left. We must beg the 
patience of the reader while we attempt to 
sift this point somewhat more critically 
than usual. Possibly it belongs to that 
class of occult subjects which refuse to be 
brought into the categories of clear thought. 
When those who have written upon this 
subject have attempted an explanation of 
the precise point, they have seemed like 
men groping in the dark. It will no doubt 
be impossible, after the utmost effort, to 
clear the subject of all difficulty, but we 
are not without hope that by careful pains- 



Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 33 

taking and great patience somp approach 
may be made to a solution, suJacient, at 
least, to evoke the efforts of other minds 
who may bring the subject to completion." 

The difficulties so strikingly presented 
by Dr. Foster had for years presented them- 
selves to my mind ; and before I saw his 
work I had wrought out a theory which, 
to my own mind, not only obviates these 
great difficulties, but exhibits the nature 
and the relations to each other of justifica- 
tion, regeneration, and sanctification. 

When God justifies a seeker of salvation 
he pardons all his sins, changes all his 
moral relations to himself, and all his 
moral relations to the universe. He an- 
nounces to him the blessed fact of his for- 
giveness, translates him from the kingdom 
of darkness into that of his Son, lifts upon 

him the glorious light of his reconciled 

3 



34 Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 

countenance, adopts Mm into his family, 
and gives the Holy Spirit to bear witness 
with his spirit that he is a child of God. 
He fills him with joy on account of his de- 
liverance from condemnation — on account 
of his disburdened conscience. He lights 
up in his soul the deep and blessed con- 
sciousness of the Divine favor and presence. 
He opens upon him the smiling heavens, 
beaming with love, welcome, and approval. 
But in addition to all this light, peace, 
and joy, springing out of these new rela- 
tions and new revelations, God introduces 
into his moral faculties a new vigor by 
which he is fully able to hold under con- 
trol all his sinful tendencies and tempers 
springing up out of that depravity which 
still characterizes the essence of the soul, 
and by which he is also able to overcome 
all the temptations of demoniacal foes. God 



Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 35 

hangs new lamps through his intellect, 
imparts to him new spiritual perceptions, 
and new discernments of the presence of 
moral evil and of the devices of the wicked 
one. God opens new breadth to his wis- 
dom, puts, new quickness, tenderness, and 
control into his conscience, new order and 
fervor into his affections, new intensities 
into all his good sensibilities, and new 
energy into his will. He opens within 
him the new life — the eternal life. Before 
justification God awakens fear in the soul 
of the seeker. And this fear inspires many 
desires that lead the soul toward obedience 
and trust in God. But in the work of re- 
generation he invigorates all the originally 
implanted powers, desires, affections, and 
propensities. To each he gives an incipi- 
ent new order and harmony, tending to a 
final and complete readjustment, in which 



2,6 Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 

each shall have its due relation, and its 
proper and holy exercise. Love to God, 
to man, to truth, to holiness, were among 
the original affections; and upon these 
dead affections God breathes the breath 
of life in the work of regeneration. 

But in all the great and glorious things 
that are done in justification and regenera- 
tion, not a single inbred, sinful tendency 
is removed from the essence of the soul.* 
Every such tendency remains in the nature 
or essence of the soul after the great work 

* Here we must note the distinction that exists be- 
tween the essence and the faculties of the soul. A faculty- 
is a way of the soul's acting; and the soul has as many 
faculties as it has distinct ways of acting. W r e have 
memory, imagination, reason, affection ; but they are not 
the immaterial unity called the mind or soul. This is 
an immaterial essence or substratum without which there 
could be no faculties. And that this essence of the soul 
is depraved we have proof in the fact that the faculties 
are depraved. 



Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 37 

of regeneration has been wrought. Name 
all the inbred sins catalogued by divines, or 
by inspiration, or by consciousness, and the 
consciousness of each reader will tell him 
that not one of these has been removed in 
regeneration. Do not pride, unbelief, aver- 
sion to holy duties, irreverence, envy, jeal- 
ousy, anger, ambition, impatience, love of 
the world, selfishness, and an unwillingness 
to make sacrifices for the welfare of others, 
besides other forms of sin, all without ex- 
ception remain in the soul after regen- 
eration ? Universal Christian experience 
answers in the affirmative. They remain, 
too, in their undiminished vigor, though 
relatively weakened by the new vigor and 
activity God communicates to the moral 
faculties. 

We must distinguish between changes 
in the action, adjustment, and energy of 



38 Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 

the faculties, and changes wrought in the 
essence or substratum of the soul. It is in 
this essence, and not in the action of the 
faculties, that we locate the character of 
the soul. In every finite soul the action 
of the faculties may be imperfect in many 
respects, and yet its moral character be 
sinless. "If you were blind," said Jesus 
to the Pharisees, " you would have no sin. 4 " 
Depravity entered the soul through a 
permitted disturbance in the moral action 
of the faculties. The degree of this dis- 
turbance was such as to involve sin and 
immorality. By means of this permitted 
disturbance in the harmony of the affec- 
tions sin passed through the sensibilities 
and the will, through the faculties, down 
into the essence of the soul, and changed 
the character of that essence. It had been 
holy; it now became unholy, depraved. 



Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 39 

The first step, therefore, in the restoration 
of a soul to the lost image of God — to its 
original holiness — is to convince it of its 
moral condition ; the second, to bring it to 
evangelical repentance ; the third, to secure 
a change in all its moral relations; the 
fourth, a change in the strength, in the ac- 
tivities, tendencies, and inclinations of the 
faculties ; the fifth and last, a complete and 
fundamental change in the essence itself of 
the soul. 

The new invigorating influence which is 
communicated to the faculties in the work 
of regeneration is indispensable to enable 
the soul to maintain its state of justificar 
tion. But God does this work of invigor- 
ating the faculties only up to that degree 
which will leave the soul perfectly free to 
work out its salvation, and yet not to 
that degree which would interfere with its 



40 Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 

free agency. In the work of regenerating 
the soul God might have so renewed and 
purified it that ever afterward all sin would 
be shockingly repulsive, and all sugges- 
tions to sin exceedingly offensive. He 
might make the substance of the soul of 
the seeker more holy than that of Adam, 
than that of any of the departed saints, or 
of the angels who stand in his presence. 
But if he were to do that, how could 
temptation in any way test the loyalty 
of the will, or test the soul's deliberate 
preference of the right — its strength of 
faith, its willingness to endure trial unto 
the end of its probation, its trust under 
limitations of knowledge and misapprehen- 
sions, and its power to hold fast to God ? 
The soul must needs pass valiantly through 
all such experiences before the believer can 
attain the priceless excellency of a clean 



Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 41 

heart, and achieve for himself the splendor 
of a sanctified character. Such a perfection 
of the work of holiness, if wrought in re- 
generation, would conflict with free agency, 
and defeat all the great purposes of a 
probationary state. The regenerated soul 
must exercise its free agency in making 
use of the divine help and grace already 
imparted, and in struggling with the in- 
born depravity still remaining, and in ex- 
periencing the full, cleansing efficacy of the 
blood of the Lamb. Great and precious, 
unspeakably important, as the work of re- 
generation confessedly is, it is only half 
the work Jesus came to perform. "The 
regenerated man," says Bishop Hedding, 
"finds in himself pride, anger, envy, malice, 
and rejoicing over the calamities of an en- 
emy." "The regenerated have remaining 
impurity," says Dr. Dempster. Richard 



42 Light 07i the Pathway of Holiness. 

Watson says, "Former corruptions remain 
in the regenerated son], and strive hard 
for the mastery." " We deny," says Mr. 
John Wesley, "that the regenerated are 
delivered from the being of sin. The love 
of sin remains in the soul after its regen- 
eration." "The carnal mind," says Dr. 
E. S. Foster, " survives the work of regen- 
eration, and is often activelv rebellious in 

7 t/ 

the hearts of real Christians." St. Paul, in 
describing believers, says : " The flesh lust- 
eth against the Spirit, and these are con- 
trary the one to the other." " For ye are 
yet carnal : for whereas there is among you 
envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye 
not carnal?" And again, after saying to 
the Corinthian Christians, "Ye are the 
temple of the living God," he adds, almost 
immediately, the exhortation : " Dearly be- 
loved, let us cleanse ourselves from al] 



Light on the Pathway of Holiness, 43 

filthiness of the flesh and spirit." Yet, not- 
withstanding all such testimonies and au- 
thorities Christians — theologians and others 
— generally agree that regeneration and 
sanctification are the same in 'kind, differ- 
ing only in degree. This seems to me to 
be a fundamental error. And to this error 
I attribute the acknowledged darkness 
which pervades the Church on the great 
doctrine of sanctification — a doctrine of 
transcendent importance. The nature of 
regeneration has not been clearly perceived, 
and, consequently, has not been accurately 
defined. 

Regeneration is such an invigorator of 
the moral faculties as will enable the justi- 
fied soul to hold under complete subjection 
all its sinful tendencies and overcome all 
outward temptations, and thus escape the 
necessity of sinning against God. It was 



44 Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 

the design of the Redeemer not only to 
change all the moral relations of the soul, 
and to put moral vigor into all its facul- 
ties, by which it could hold under control 
all its sinful tendencies, triumph over all 
inward sins and outward foes, and main- 
tain itself in the favor of God; but also to 
save it from all its inbred depravity, to 
cleanse it thoroughly from all its moral 
defilements, to exchange its state of sinful- 
ness for one of sinless holiness. After re- 
generation, there is another moral state of 
the soul in which it not only can control 
all the stirrings of moral evil within, and 
hold in complete check all the advances of 
spiritual foes, but can also loathe sin, per- 
ceive its first approaches, hear its slightest 
whisper, feel its most concealed presence, 
and yet constantly and instantaneously 
reject all its unhallowed proposals, and 



Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 45 

invariably crush the risings of all sinful 
desires. When the soul reaches this state 
of moral purity it dreads sin, is pained at 
its approach, feels no inbred affinity for it, 
and hence it can dismiss all its allure- 
ments with a promptness that gives no 
place to the devil. Such a change is 
wrought in the essence of the soul that it 
rejects temptations, in some degree, by 
means of its inwrought aversion to all 
moral impurity. Temptation may induce 
a movement among its innocent sensibili- 
ties, but it no longer has an affinity for 
vice as vice. Yet after being made holy, 
the soul must be tempted in order to test 
its loyalty to holiness. The blinding and 
fascinating influences of sin are still per- 
mitted, and must be permitted, to exert 
their power upon the sanctified soul, in 
order to secure the great ends of an ade- 



46 Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 

quate trial. But no tongue can properly 
express the advantages that one wholly 
purified by the blood of Jesus has, in con- 
tending with the attractions of sin, over 
one that is living in a state of justification 
only. He feels his obligations more strong- 
ly, sees his privileges more distinctly, and 
is more fully under the influence of divine 
truth. The motives to faithfulness are 
more clearly apprehended ; his willingness 
to endure temptation and the loss of all 
things is greater; his self-denial is easier; 
his faith stronger, grander; his joy fuller; 
and his power to prevail before the throne 
more perfect. When a soul reaches this 
state, it takes no delight in sin, however at- 
tractive. Beneath all its fascinations it sees, 
with a heaven-lit eye, deception and death. 
They may be dismissed from the front with 
a single " Get thee behind me, Satan," 



Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 47 

The soul having been justified and re- 
generated, and maintaining the state of 
justification, retaining the witness of the 
Holy Spirit attesting its acceptance, God 
now convicts it of inbred sin, and the ne- 
cessity of its complete removal. First, 
there came a conviction of its ruined, help- 
less state ; then, a conviction of the neces- 
sity of forgiveness and of a change, of all 
its moral relations: now there comes a 
conviction of the corruption of the heart. 
Mr. John Wesley says, " After justification 
God uncovers to the soul the inbred mon- 
ster's face." 

The motives which God presents to the 
sinner before his justification, in view of 
which he expects the sinner to act, seem 
to me to center in the man himself. But 
the motives which he presents to the re- 
generated, in urging the necessity of holi- 



48 Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 

ness, all center in God. The view which 
the one seeking pardon takes of the atone- 
ment differs widely from that which is 
taken by the justified believer. Before 
justification it is the guilt-atoning, the 
pardoning power, that fills his eye; but 
subsequently to justification it is the all- 
cleansing efficacy of that atoning blood that 
broadens before his mind, and fills the whole 
horizon of his soul with joy, and gratitude, 
and hope. In the one case faith appre- 
hends Jesus Christ as one perfectly able 
and williog to pardon ; in the other, it ap- 
prehends him as able and willing to cleanse 
from all sin, to save unto the uttermost. 
Antecedent to justification there was a 
willingness to forsake sin — all sinful prac- 
tices; so, antecedent to sanctification there 
must be a willingness to be made morally 
clean — to be cleansed and saved from all 



Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 49 

unrighteousness. As it was through a free 
exercise of the will that the virus of de- 
pravity passed down into the essence of 
the soul, so when once incorporated in that 
essence it can be removed only by the 
choice of the same faculty. It must be 
removed, if removed at all, without dis- 
turbing or abating the souPs freedom, for 
on that freedom depends all that makes 
existence to accountable beings either de- 
sirable or glorious. 

The removal of this inbred corruption 
has been generally denominated sancti- 
fication. This is the full salvation, the 
cleansing from all sin. To every justified, 
regenerated soul, God says, " Be thou holy." 
On this point Mr. John Wesley says that 
the soul is convicted of inbred sin by a 
conviction far deeper and clearer than that 

experienced before its justification. Even 

4 



50 Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 

those ministers who deny the possibility 
of sanctification in this life adroit that the 
soul's convictions for sin are much more 
pungent and heart-searching after conver- 
sion or regeneration than before it. But 
as the soul, in order to obtain pardon and 
adoption into the family of God must re- 
nounce the world and self; must forsake 
all sins ; must resolve to be the Lord's, and 
to serve Him forever; the question may 
arise, Why does not God at the moment 
of justification thoroughly cleanse the soul, 
instead of simply renewing its faculties? 
The answer is ready. The seeker of par- 
don is not seeking to be cleansed from 
all inbred sinfulness — to be spiritually 
cleansed is not the point he is aiming at. 
That is not the burden, the necessity, then 
pressing upon his soul. But his guilt and 
danger; a sense of the divine displeasure; 



Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 5 I 

a horror of great darkness; a fearful look- 
ing for of judgment; the fiendish assaults 
of diabolical spirits; the fearful struggles 
of his own will in the inward revolutions 
going on in his soul during the great work 
of repentance; the withdrawal of his affec- 
tions from idolized objects; the precious 
boon of forgiveness that looms up before 
him as a single star in a whole sky of 
blackness and tempest ; his hope of escap- 
ing from the fiery indignation that shall 
devour the adversaries of God — these, these 
are the chapters of ideas that fill and en- 
gross his mind, shutting out every other 
consideration. In all such experiences as 
these, the proper and efficient motive is 
fear. For fear is one of the proper mo- 
tives and lawful grounds of moral action. 
"Fear," says Dr. Cocker, "is the first emo- 
tional element of all religion." The Saviour, 



52 LigJit on the Pathway of Holiness. 

in addressing sinners, often appeals to this 
motive: "How can ye escape the damna- 
tion of hell?" "Fear Him who, after he 
hath killed, hath power to cast into hell: 
yea, I say unto you, fear Him." " If ye 
believe not that I am He, ye shall die in 
your sins." "They that have done evil 
(shall come forth) unto the resurrection of 
damnation." We thus see that repentance 
actuated by fear is acceptable to God. In- 
deed, the sinner cannot love God until he 
feels that God loves him, that his anger is 
turned away from him ; and this he cannot 
know until he receives the witness of for- 
giveness. He cannot, therefore, act in view 
of those motives which center in God. 
The holiness of God, the reasonableness of 
his law, the moral welfare of the universe, 
and the ineffable charms of virtue, are 
wholly ineffectual to move him. He can- 



Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 53 

not act from a love of holiness, because he 
does not and cannot love holiness. And 
we may say that up to the point of justifi- 
cation he is incapable of acting from any 
motive that does not center in himself. 
And all the motives that center in self, 
and from which the seeker of salvation 
could act, may be summed up in the ge- 
neric motive, fear : — fear of evil, of loss, of 
ruin, of punishment. Fear being a legiti- 
mate ground of action, and the unjustified 
man being incapable of acting in view of 
higher controlling motives, God graciously 
accepts his service when actuated by that 
single inferior motive. But as soon as the 
soul is justified and regenerated, it is then 
capable of acting from higher motives. 
And therefore from the moment of its 
adoption into the family of God, duty re- 
quires that its great controlling motive in 



54 Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 

the service of God should be love — love 
for God, for holiness, for the kingdom of 
righteousness, and for all mankind. If a 
soul in seeking salvation from inbred de- 
pravity be actuated by a slavish fear of 
punishment, or by a desire of personal 
aggrandizement, and regards only in a 
secondary degree those higher motives and 
considerations which center in God's holy 
nature and character, that soul must fail 
to illustrate unmistakably its genuine and 
proper loyalty to virtue, to the highest 
welfare of the intelligent universe, and to 
God. To seek sanctification without prime 
reference to rectitude, justice, and holiness, 
wirich are involved in the divine require- 
ments and indispensable in God's moral 
government, could not be acceptable to 
God. The only prime motive in seeking 
deliverance from the remains of the carnal 



Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 55 

mind which God honors or will honor is a 
love of moral purity, a longing for holi- 
ness, a desire to be created anew in Christ 
Jesus. But when the soul is groaning 
under guilt and seeking for pardon, it is 
not in love with holiness; it is not longing 
for, or pressing hard after, nor even think- 
ing of, holiness. 

Holiness is not what its faith is now 
claiming — is not now within the sphere of 
its faith. Hence if a soul, at the moment 
of its justification and regeneration, were 
to be saved unto the uttermost— sanctified, 
in the sense in which we are now using 
that term — it would not be a salvation 
through faith ; for salvation by faith re- 
quires that the specific needs of the soul 
be met in answer to its specific faith. 
" According to your faith be it unto you," 
•feaid Jesus. But a pleading and a be- 



56 Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 

lieving for pardon are not a pleading and 
a believing for full salvation from all in- 
bred corruption. God will not do for a 
soul actuated by fear, by those motives 
that center in self, any more than is neces- 
sary to enable it to work out for itself 
righteousness and true holiness. And so 
soon as the believer is capable of acting 
from a higher motive God requires him to 
do so. Love is the strongest of all the 
motives that influence the justified. 

As in seeking justification the faith of 
the seeker does not embrace sanctification 
— as regeneration and sanctification are so 
separate and different in their nature — and 
as the motive by which the seeker of the 
one of these two great blessings is so un- 
like that which actuates the seeker of the 
other — we may well affirm that justifica- 
tion and sanctification never occur at the 



Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 57 

same moment. In narrating the experi- 
ence of some one, Mr. Wesley remarks, 

" From the very time of her justification 
she clearly saw the necessity of being 
wholly sanctified, and she felt an unspeak- 
able hunger and thirst after the full image 
of God; and in the year 1772 God an- 
swered her desire. The second change was 
wrought in as strong and distinct a man- 
ner as the first had been." Speaking of 
another person, he says, "She had been 
clearly justified long before, but said the 
change she experienced was extremely dif- 
ferent from what she experienced then ; as 
different as the noonday light from that 
of daybreak: that she now felt her soul 
all love, and quite overwhelmed in God." 
Mr. Wesley continues, " Another says, she 
has enjoyed the love of God nine years, 
but felt as great a difference between that 



58 Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 

state and the state she is in now as if her 
soul were taken to heaven." Speaking of 
the anti-evangelical clergy of his day, he 
says, "They speak of justification either as 
the same thing with sanctification, or as 
something consequent upon it. I believe 
justification to be wholly distinct from 
sanctification, and necessarily antecedent 
to it." "All who enjoy sanctification assert 
that they sought it as a distinct blessing." 
"It is an instantaneous work, and its wit- 
ness is a clear and distinct witness from 
the witness of justification." And who, I 
would ask, ever heard of any one reaching 
the witness of sanctification by growth ? 

In seeking adoption into the divine 
family, the will of the seeker was called 
upon to endure as much, to struggle with 
as much, and to overcome as much, as it 
could possibly. To have required more, 



Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 59 

or to have put greater tension upon it, 
would have been unjust, and would have 
interfered with the conditions of freedom. 
In seeking the cleansing of the soul there 
is a new and higher work for faith, a new 
and higher work for the will. Sanctifica- 
tion requires just as much effort of the will 
as the will can put forth. As the will was 
energized in the work of regeneration, it 
can now put forth a greater effort than be- 
fore. God therefore requires it not to re- 
ceive his grace in vain, but to use its new 
power of self-determination. As sin first 
entered into the soul and corrupted it 
through the sensibilities and the will, so 
now it must be removed, if removed at all, 
from the nature of the soul with the co- 
operation of all the faculties, and especially 
with the full consent and determination 
of the will. But such mental action being 



60 Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 

beyond the capability of a depraved soul, 
the Holy Spirit proffers to remove the 
state of sinfulness — all sinful tendencies 
— from the soul, provided the will shall 
fully co-operate by willing it to be done, 
by exercising faith in the promise that it 
shall be done, and by relying on the 
cleansing efficacy of the atoning blood, 
in virtue of which alone it can be done. 
Without such a co-operation of the will it 
never can be done. But this co-operation 
of the will is now possible since new moral 
energy was given to the will in regenera- 
tion. The will now has the power to act, 
and it must act most decisively and ener- 
getically. Unless it thus co-operates, there 
will be no adequate reliance, no adequate 
exercise of faith. Without the decision of 
the will to be holy, holiness can never be 
realized by any man. It is in the clear, 



Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 61 

untranmieled choice and decision to be 
holy, cost what it may, that the soul can 
evince its loyalty to holiness, and unfold a 
character which will be worthy of reward, 
and a nature capable of enjoying a reward 
divinely bestowed. This exercise of the 
will is not only distinct from that put 
forth by the seeker of pardon, antecedent 
to justification, but it is a much greater 
effort. Then the will decided to forego 
sinful indulgences ; but, in seeking full re- 
demption, the will is required to surrender 
itself. It is much easier to give up lying, 
cheating, swearing, or any common sin, than 
it is to surrender the will itself, and bind 
it to conform to and to acquiesce in the 
will of another forever. It is far easier to 
give up sinful pleasures, however attract- 
ive they may be. The mind which has 
become as God, knowing, determining for 



62 Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 

itself, good and evil — which has assumed 
the prerogative of disposing of itself, and 
of determining duty and fundamental mo- 
rality for itself — recoils from the thought 
of yielding without reserve its will to that 
of Jesus Christ. " After regeneration, 1 ' says 
Mr. Wesley, " and while the soul enjoys 
the witness of the Spirit attesting to its 
sonship, the will is not wholly resigned to 
the will of God. 1 ' When Jesus yielded his 
human will to the will of God, exclaiming, 
"If it be possible, let this cup pass from 
me : nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou 
wilt," his sufferings were most intense, and 
his character most glorious. The agony 
of that moment, when, notwithstanding the 
shame, the buffetings, the conflicts, and 
the unutterable sufferings impending, Jesus 
thus absolutely surrendered his human 
will to that of God, illumines with a divine 



Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 63 

light the process of sanctifi cation — the be- 
liever's experience of a fall salvation. 

But suppose God should cleanse a soul 
from all its alienation to himself, and from 
all inbred depravity, without its own 
deliberate and undivided choice of holi- 
ness — without its exercising the faith that 
definitely claims the great blessing — and 
without being actuated by those high and 
holy motives which center in God — such 
an act would be a marked departure from 
that principle of his economy so uniformly 
observed, namely, never to do for an ac- 
countable being that which he can do for 
himself. Should God in that way work 
his transforming wonders, the soul would 
fail in the achievement of that excellence, 
that development of nature, and that ex- 
altation of character, which can only come 
through the free exercise of its own facuL 



64 Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 

ties. It could never receive the rewards 
of achieving, in a qualified sense, holiness 
for itself. The boon of a sanctified spirit, 
of a holy heart, if given under such cir- 
cumstances, could not be so highly prized 
by its possessor as it would be had that 
great blessing been clearly presented to 
his consideration, and his own co-operation, 
struggle, and choice, been required for its 
attainment. But impress the justified, re- 
generated soul with the dangers which it 
incurs from the inbred corruption remain- 
ing within, and of whose struggles for 
supremacy it is daily, hourly conscious — 
show it that it must not give place to the 
devil for an instant — that in order to pre- 
serve its liberty and the witness of its 
adoption it must be cleansed from all 
filthiness of the flesh and of the spirit — 
that it must be holy now, or continue in* 



Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 65 

imminent danger of backsliding — let the 

unspeakable advantages and blessedness 

of holiness be clearly seen, and, in full 

view of all these solemn considerations let 

I 
the choice be deliberately made to seek by 

self-denial and faith that spiritual purity, 
that complete salvation which the Gospel 
proffers — then will that soul properly ap- 
preciate the blood-bought gift when in in- 
finite mercy it shall be bestowed, and then 
will that gift be most likely to be retained. 
But to one who does not feel intensely the 
need of sanctification God cannot give the 
power of sanctifying faith. God gives ca- 
pacities and opportunities for physical, 
mental, and material improvement, and 
then leaves men to avail themselves of 
them as they may choose. To secure phys- 
ical strength, health, and beauty — to attain 

mental expansion and power, or mate- 

5 



66 Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 

rial comforts, deliberation, self-denial, and 
choice are all needed; and in like manner 
they are needed for the attainment of a clean 
heart. In regeneration God gives moral 
power, and requires it to be exercised and 
improved upon. And if this power be prop- 
erly exercised, he soon brings the soul into 
that high state of grace in which the flesh 
will no longer lust against the Spirit, nor 
the Spirit against the flesh. But if this 
power be not exercised, it is gradually les- 
sened, and it is finally overcome by some 
of those sinful tempers and tendencies 
which, as we have said, remain in the soul 
after regeneration. Then the soul loses 
the witness of the Holy Spirit to its justi- 
fication and adoption. And we will here 
add, that for some cause or causes, and, we 
doubt not, to a very great degree for the 
want of clearer views of the nature of re- 



Light 011 the Pathway of Holiness. 67 . 

genera tion, and of proper instruction on 
the subject of sanctification, the far great- 
er multitude of the converted neglect to 
go forward until some besetting sin over- 
masters them and they lose the evidence 
of their acceptance. And to-day the great 
body of Christian believers are living with- 
out the witness of the Holy Spirit with 
their spirit that they are the children of 
God. Surely, if not all, yet much of this 
terrible evil could be removed by proper 
teaching on the subject of holiness. 

Up to the point of regeneration it is 
pardon and deliverance from endless death 
that are presented to the soul for its ac- 
ceptance. Their bestowment is suspended 
upon its own free choice and its exercise 
of a specific faith; that is, a faith having 
specific reference to those blessings. But 
after regeneration, it is freedom from all 



68 Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 

inbred sin, a fall salvation, which is pre- 
sented to the soul for its acceptance. Why 
should pardon he presented to the soul 
for acceptance or rejection, and sanctifica- 
tion be wrought in the soul, without its 
enjoying the exalted privilege of accepting 
that gift, and of relying specifically upon 
the blood of atonement for it ? Christ pro- 
poses to destroy, in the regenerated soul, 
all the works of the wicked one — to remove 
every disposition and feeling contrary to 
his own mind. But in doing this he must 
have the co-operation of the believer's 
choice, affection, faith, and service. With- 
out these he cannot perform the great 
w r ork of cleansing. 

By holiness I mean that state of the 
soul in which all its alienation from God 
and all its aversion to a holy life are re- 
moved. In this state sin is odious. The 



Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 69 

more holy any soul, any being is, the more 
odious sin becomes. To a good man sin is 
odious; to a holy man, it is more odious; 
to an angel, it is far more so still; but to 
God sin must be, to us, inconceivably 
odious. And therefore it is said that the 
heavens are not clean in his sight, and that 
he charged his angels with folly- — so insig- 
nificant is their holiness when contrasted 
with the holiness of God. Holiness ad- 
mits of an infinite number of degrees ; and 
there is set before us an eternal progression 
in holiness. But that degree of it, or that 
state of the soul in which temptations to 
sin leave there no damaging moral influ- 
ence, no tarnish of sin, no pain in the 
conscience, no corruption of the will, no 
obscurity or perversion of the spiritual 
vision — that state in which the all-effica- 
cious blood of Jesus has washed away all 



yo Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 

the stains of sin, and in which the Holy 
Spirit constantly presides, rules, and reigns 
without a rival— is what we call sanctifica- 
tion. Without this degree of holiness no 
man shall see the Lord. But a soul leav- 
ing the world possessed of this degree of 
holiness is at once ushered into the awful 
presence of God. 

Justification is a change in the moral 
relations of the soul. Regeneration is a 
change in the strength of all the moral 
faculties by the infusion of a new vitality. 
But sanctification is that change in the 
moral state of the soul whereby its inborn 
and acquired depravity is exchanged for a 
Heaven-imparted holiness, measuring up to 
the degree described in the preceding para- 
graph. Justification is an instantaneous 
work. When God pardons a sinner, he 
does not work at it for days in succession. 



Light on the Pathway of Holiness, 71 

He does not pardon a sin or two to-day, a 
few more to-morrow, and the others at 
some subsequent or indefinite future time. 
The conditions which will allow him to 
pardon one sin, will allow him to pardon 
all sins; and therefore when he grants a 
pardon, he pardons fully and thoroughly. 
So when he regenerates the faculties of 
the soul he does not accomplish the work 
by degrees. He does not illumine the 
reason and quicken conscience to-day, and 
wait until to-morrow to put new energy 
into the will. And it is precisely so with 
sanctification. When in the work of sav- 
ing a soul God changes its moral nature, 
he does not produce that change by de- 
grees. Sanctification is a single, simple, 
definite work wrought in the essence or 
substratum of the soul. It is not taking 
this sinful temper away, and then that 



J 2 Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 

one, one after another. It is not the dry- 
ing up now this poisonous stream, and 
then that poisonous stream. But it is the 
going directly to the fountain whence all 
those corrupt streams flow, and the saying, 
with a divine power, to that fountain, " Be 
pure, be holy." Sanctification is therefore 
an all-cleansing act. It is, so to speak, the 
finishing of the great work of Gospel salva- 
tion, which commenced with conviction of 
sin, and the prompting of the soul to flee 
the wrath to come. 

This degree of holiness, which we call 
sanctification, is to be reached only by 
faith in the merits of Christ. But the 
power or degree of faith to believe for this 
blessing is the immediate gift of God. But 
God never gives this power until the soul 
is willing to lose itself as it were, as to all 
interests and purposes for time and eter- 



Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 73 

nity, in God; to find in him wisdom, joy, 
peace, and rest; to find in his word and 
will the law for every thought, purpose, 
and emotion; in his glory the inspiration 
to every action and undertaking. Such 
comprehensive and far-reaching require- 
ments never occur to a soul, and are never 
required of a soul, seeking justification. It 
is a sense of guilt, helplessness, and danger 
that pervades and oppresses the soul then. 
And as on such a soul the power of justify- 
ing faith is never bestowed until it is will- 
ing to forsake all sins: so in like manner 
the power of sanctifying faith is never be- 
stowed until the desire for holiness is suffi- 
ciently intense and unwavering to make 
the soul comply with all the conditions 
upon which this great gift is bestowed, 
and also to appreciate it when it is be- 
stowed. Now it is at this precise point in 



74 Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 

the experience of the seeker that the great 
promise is given : " What things soever ye 
desire, when ye pray, believe that ye re- 
ceive them, and ye shall have them." To 
obtain complete salvation the soul must so 
urgently feel its need that nothing short 
of immediate restoration to moral sound- 
ness will satisfy it. When this desire is 
sufficiently strong and protracted, God im- 
parts the power of sanctifying faith ; and 
then, if the seeker exercises this power of 
faith when he prays for sanctification, he 
receives that blessing. 

By failing to keep in view the precise 
character to which this promise is ad- 
dressed, many estimable people wholly mis- 
interpret it. As they present this promise, 
the belief itself of the seeker is made the 
consideration, in lieu of the blood of the 
atonement, in virtue of which the blessing 



Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 75 

sought is bestowed. This interpretation 
of the words, " Believe that ye receive 
them, and ye shall have them," makes the 
evidence of one's sanctification an intellect- 
ual process rather than a burning experi- 
ence of the soul. Hence said one distin- 
guished minister in my hearing, "I went 
round my circuit professing sanctification 
before I had the witness of it." But our 
salvation, in whole or in part, is by the 
blood of Christ. Regeneration is one part, 
sanctification is another part, each distinct 
from the other. As nothing in the uni- 
verse but the blood of Jesus Christ can 
save from the guilt of sin, so nothing but 
the same blood can save from inborn sin- 
fulness. There is no other merit in con- 
sideration of which the Holy Spirit can 
work the wonders of purification. Trust- 
ing in that blood, our guilt vanishes away 



y6 Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 

and is remembered no more; and the 
same blood atones for that depravity of 
the soul which inhered before it exercised 
one of its faculties, or committed a single 
sin. Trusting in that blood we are made 
holy. These are the great works which 
Jesus Christ came to do in the soul. When 
he pardons, when he regenerates, he does 
a wonderful work; but these are only a 
part of salvation. The work of salvation 
is not complete until all the sinful tenden- 
cies are removed from the soul. For we 
must clearly distinguish between a sinful 
tendency and a susceptibility to sin. With- 
out such a susceptibility, man could not be 
tested. This susceptibility may exist and 
yet the soul be perfectly sinless. But a sin- 
ful tendency is a proneness to sin — an affin- 
ity for sin as sin. If the work of salvation 
stop with regeneration, all that has been 



Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 77 

done in the soul is useless, for after re- 
generation all the sinful tendencies remain 
in the soul. In the regenerated soul there 
is no actual fitness for the holiness of 
heaven. There is no fitness to live as be- 
cometh a redeemed being, and no safety 
from backsliding, until the inbred sinful- 
ness is taken from the soul itself. Unless 
Jesus Christ can remove all inhering in- 
clinations to sin, he came to do a work 
which he cannot do. If he cannot take 
away the carnality which remains after the 
soul's restoration to amicable relations to 
its Maker, he is deficient in the resources 
needed in a Redeemer of mankind. But 
what Christian will venture to doubt the 
value of Christ's merits to purchase moral 
purity, or the ability of the Holy Spirit to 
cleanse and thoroughly renew the soul? 
Jesus Christ either wishes to remove in- 



78 Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 

dwelling depravity, or he does not. But 
what Christian would affirm or believe 
that he does not desire to remove unholi- 
ness from the soul of the believer ? If he 
does desire its removal — if he has made 
that result possible, and proffers supernal 
aid by w^hieh it can be effected — what is 
needed but the obedience, co-operation, 
and faith of the seeker himself? One spe- 
cial application of the blood of atonement 
was needed to secure pardon and the re- 
newal of the moral faculties : but a second 
application is needed to change the moral 
nature of the soul itself. And as the bless- 
ing of justification is to be sought uninter- 
ruptedly until the witness of pardon is 
vouchsafed, so the second great blessing 
is to be sought from the moment of justifi- 
cation until the Holy Spirit bears witness 
of its bestowal. The soul should give it- 



Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 79 

self no rest until the Holy Spirit and its 
own spirit unite in attestation that the 
great work of inward purity has been 
wrought. 

But as the trials sent by God for dis- 
cipline, and the temptations addressed to 
the soul by wicked spirits, must find in our 
susceptibilities something on which they 
can operate to put to the test our strength 
of moral excellence, or to disturb the nor- 
mal action and relation of our faculties, 
how is a sanctified man to know that the . 
quivering he experiences among his sensi- 
bilities under these divinely-sent trials, or 
Satanic temptations, do not arise because 
there is some inborn depravity, some moral 
alienation, still inhering in his nature? 
God sends trials to test and strengthen the 
virtues, but he never allures men to com- 
mit sin. If there were no tempting Satan, 



80 Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 

God would send trials sufficient to furnish 
the soul an adequate arena for testing its 
loyalty. But God allows Satan to tempt 
to evil those who are passing through their 
period of probation. Satan being wholly 
malignant, he cannot but desire that men 
should act wickedly. He therefore tempts 
men who are wicked, or are unsanctified, 
to do that which is positively wrong. He 
does this because in such men there exist 
strong affinities for sin which give imme- 
diate responses to such temptations. But 
those temptations which he addresses to 
sanctified souls are usually indirect. He 
aims to involve them in sin through an 
excessive action or indulgence of sensi- 
bilities in themselves innocent and proper. 
He aims to disturb the harmony of the 
lawful sensibilities; to get one sensibility 
to exert an undue influence over another; 



Light on the Pathway of Holiness, 81 

or a lesser obligation to override a greater — 
the love of knowledge, for example, to in- 
terfere with the duty of visiting the huts 
of squalid poverty to relieve the distressed. 
Now such a temptation, and the conse- 
quent movement among the sensibilities, 
and the exertion of will required to preserve 
order among them, clearly do not in the 
least degree involve sin in t 4 he soul The 
sanctified soul knows, just as Jesus knew, 
or as Adam before his fall knew, that a 
stirring among the sensibilities which has 
not yet swerved the will, or in the least 
degree gained its consent to sin, cannot be 
sinful. True, there may be somewhat of 
unrest; peace may to some extent be dis- 
turbed by the sternness of the engagement ; 
but there cannot be a consciousness of sin 
or of sinfulness. Sin cannot enter the soul 
without the permission of the will ; but the 

6 



82 Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 

effort and struggle to enter are indispensa- 
ble, under our present conditions of being, 
to an adequate test of the soul's loyalty. 
But suppose a temptation be addressed 
directly to a sanctified man — a temptation, 
for example, to indulge in a feeling posi- 
tively wicked. This temptation must be 
permitted to exert, or to present, certain 
blinding, deceiving, and fascinating influ- 
ences upon the innocent sensibilities of his 
soul. These influences are indispensable 
to an adequate trial of a soul in a sanctified 
state; and they are rendered possible be- 
cause of the soul's many misapprehensions, 
springing necessarily out of its limitations 
of knowledge, thought, feeling, and obser- 
vation. But these same blinding influ- 
ences were brought to bear upon the sensi- 
bilities of Adam before he yielded. Had 
his will resisted them, as it ought, they 



Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 83 

would plainly have been no evidence of a 
moral taint within his soul. But these 
fascinating influences of sin were also ad- 
dressed to, and experienced by, the sensi- 
bilities of the sinless man Jesus Christ. 
He was tempted in all points like as we 
are, yet without sin. 

The blinding and deceiving influences^ 
of wicked feelings, such as pride, malice, 
ambition, perverseness, and covetousness, 
which are necessary to an adequate trial, 
have usually been regarded by theologians 
and others as clear evidence that the soul 
experiencing them cannot be sanctified. 
When wicked feelings are positively pre- 
sented to such a soul, the question to be 
asked is, "Is there in it any affinity for, 
any responsive welcome to, those feelings ? " 
There must be a susceptibility of being 
moved by those wicked feelings, or there 



84 Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 

would be no use or meaning in the tempta- 
tion. Here, again, we need to distinguish 
between an innocent susceptibility of feel- 
ing and a sinful tendency or affinity for 
sin as sin. If there is in a soul only a sus- 
ceptibility of feeling, making it possible to 
sin, but no actual affinity for sin giving 
responsive welcome to sinful solicitations, 
a movement among the sensibilities conse- 
quent upon temptations to indulge in wick- 
ed feelings would be no evidence whatever 
of an unsanctified state. 

But is the sanctified soul conscious of 
any such affinity for sin? I answer un- 
hesitatingly that it is not, so soon as it is 
confirmed by habit in its state of sanctifica- 
tion. So soon as it is so confirmed, it is 
deeply pained at the obtrusive, offensive 
presence of a thought or a suggestion of 
sinning against God. In a sinful soul 



Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 85 

wicked feelings spring up spontaneously — 
they are indigenous; but they are injected, 
thrust into a sanctified soul, by diabolical 
spirits. Now if in the early experience of 
sanctification, when the soul is conscious 
of the incipient movements of wicked feel- 
ings, it should attempt to analyze those 
feelings, it will be almost impossible for it 
to decide whether they were self-originated 
or thrust in by evil, seducing spirits. Prob- 
ably thousands who have reached the state 
and the witness of entire sanctification 
have lost the blessing by not keeping this 
thought before them. After receiving a 
clean heart, they experience the incipient 
movement of some sinful feeling, such as 
hate, pride, or envy; and not knowing, 
perhaps, that it is impossible to discern in 
its incipiency whether a wicked feeling 
came from the soul itself or from a demo- 



86 Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 

niac influence ; and not being aware that it 
is difficult, in the early experience of sanc- 
tification, to analyze the feelings with suffi- 
cient accuracy to decide whether or not 
there is within the soul a slight affinity for 
sin; they give way to unbelief, cast away 
their confidence, and allow sin to capture 
them, and to rob them of the witness of 
the Spirit and their comfort. Had they 
been aware that similar disturbing move- 
ments among the sensibilities have been 
experienced by every being who has passed 
a probationary state in this world, or in 
any other — had they remembered that 
those stirrings of the sensibilities that do 
not gain the consent of the will do not 
involve sin — had they by faith held firmly 
their confidence, refused to surrender to 
unbelief, reckoned themselves dead unto 
sin, but alive unto God through Jesus 



Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 87 

Christ, and gone at once to the cross for a 
fresh application of the blood of the atone- 
ment — they would not again have been 
brought into bondage to sinful feelings: 
they would soon have exulted in a brighter 
light, and the sweetness of an enriched 
experience. 

The deceiving, distressing influences of 
wicked feelings which were injected into 
the sanctified soul by evil spirits have been 
considered proof that the soul is still un- 
sanctified. This opinion would naturally 
be entertained in the absence of the true 
theory of the introduction of moral evil 
into the universe, and of the true theory 
of sanctification. But if the sanctified man 
will carefully analyze his feelings in the 
light of sound doctrine, he will never write 
bitter things against himself because of the 
accusations of Satan, and because of heavi- 



88 Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 

ness through manifold temptations. As 
well might Eve have regarded herself as 
an unholy being before her will had at all 
consented to disobey the commands of 
God because she felt a distressing move- 
ment among her sensibilities, desiring that 
which she could not have without a viola- 
tion of the divine law, as for the newly 
sanctified soul to conclude that it has been 
mistaken in the evidences of its sanctifica- 
tion, and that it is yet in an unsanctified 
state, because it experiences a movement 
more or less painful among its sensibilities, 
and the incipient existence of unholy feel- 
ings — feelings unbidden and unwelcomed. 
The soul having experienced that degree 
of moral purity which we call sanctifica- 
tion — in which all depravity is removed 
and a holy nature placed in its stead hy 
the power of the Holy Spirit through the 



Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 89 

blood of Jesus Christ — its future progress 
consists of an increase in two distinct kinds 
of holiness. The first is a communicated 
holiness, and is the direct work of the Spirit. 
The second is a developed holiness, and is 
the result of obedience, education, and fol- 
lowing the example of Christ. Through all 
eternity these two causes will jointly secure 
the progress of the soul in moral purity. 
By transformation and assimilation it will 
be putting on the divine image more vivid- 
ly and completely. It would be a source 
of grief indeed to the Christian to feel 
that his Comforter, precious Friend, and 
glorious Sanctifier would never, after he 
reaches the heavenly world, work any more 
changes in his moral nature, nor impart to 
him any new degrees of holiness. Happily 
he may be confident that the Holy Spirit 
will communicate to him higher states of 



c,Q Light on the Pathway of Holiness, 

purity forever, in order that lie may be 
qualified to appreciate, enjoy, and illus- 
trate God's glorious holiness as it will be 
eternally unfolded before his enraptured 
vision. While in the body, the Christian 
seeks and receives these new degrees of 
imparted holiness through faith in the 
atonement: but beyond probation, since 
the great work of salvation will then be 
consummated, this increase of holiness will 
be bestow r ed directly by the Holy Spirit 
without reference to the atonement, just as 
new degrees of purity are imparted to the 
angels for ever and ever. 

But a moral being may be holy and yet 
lack a kind of excellence — in strength and 
confirmation — which God cannot directly 
bestow upon an accountable creature. If 
any soul does not get this strength and 
confirmation by the free exercise of its own 



Liglit 011 the Pathway of Holiness. 91 

powers, it roust remain destitute of them 
forever; and without them it can never 
be that which God designed it to become, 
They must be developed in practicing good 
and in resisting evil. They cannot be 
directly imparted consistently with a pur- 
pose to develop character and to prepare 
the soul for the fruition of its reward. As 
soon as the sanctified soul begins a life of 
obedience, to discharge all its obligations 
and imitate the example of Jesus Christ, 
its nature is growing more and more holy 
every day ; it is daily advancing in moral 
excellence. Some new degree of strength 
and confirmation is developed, and at the 
same time the Holy Spirit also imparts to 
it some new degree of communicated holi- 
ness. By the co-operation of these two 
agencies the soul will advance in holiness 
eternally. 



92 Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 

But the great body of theologians teach, 
that after justification and its concomitant 
regeneration, faithfulness in practical du- 
ties, in imitation of the example of Christ, 
is all that is needed. They all admit that 
in regeneration the soul is by no means 
wholly purified; that sinful tendencies re- 
main in it, and that the great work of sal- 
vation is, therefore, as yet, wrought but 
very Imperfectly, very incompletely. And 
yet they teach that faithfulness in practical 
duties is all that is needed to complete in 
the soul the great work of Gospel salva- 
tion! They wonderfully forget that the 
subjugation of depravity is not its destruc- 
tion ; that education, imitation, obedience, 
and punctilious faithfulness in practical 
duties, are not atoning and saving ordi- 
nances. They forget that there is in them 
no cleansing efficacy, no recreating energy, 



Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 93 

and no power to transform the moral state 
of the soul from that of depravity to one 
of sinlessness. They forget that a soul is 
not prepared for its practical duties, for 
obedience to God, for the imitation of 
Christ, until it is cleansed from all sin 
and saved unto the uttermost. How can 
one exhibit his full measure of physical 
strength, or put forth the full energy and 
perform the full work of a man, while all 
his faculties are weakened by disease ? No 
more is a soul fitted for a holy life, to 
meet in full its solemn obligations, to imi- 
tate the example of Christ, while deprav- 
ity inheres and characterizes its whole 
essence. This inbred corruption will in- 
evitably prevent faithfulness in practical 
duties. Striking and convincing evidence 
of this is found in the appalling unfaith- 
fulness of the vast majority of professed 



94 Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 

Christians. Such theologians forget that 
the processes and works they rely on — 
education, faithfulness, the imitation of 
Christ — cannot cleanse, cannot recreate the 
soul, nor implant any thing. All that they 
can do is to develop that which already 
exists in the soul — that which was there 
originally, or has been implanted there. 
There is a wide distinction between sancti- 
fication and the excellence resulting from 
efforts to imitate the example of Christ. 
Let us look at pride; one of the sinful 
tempers that is acknowledged by all to 
remain in the soul after its regeneration. 
This temper has its origin in depravity. 
If the soul were holy, sinless, this feeling 
could have no existence in it. Take away 
depravity, and you take away this temper. 
In regeneration the feeling of humility is 
awakened by a consideration of the now 



Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 95 

changed moral relations, of past sins and 
unworthiness. This feeling is the opposite 
and the antagonist of pride. Now let us 
suppose that the Christian begins to ex- 
ercise this feeling of humility and to re- 
press the feeling of pride. According to 
the natural law of cause and effect, humil- 
ity, by its exercise, increases in strength ; 
and pride, for lack of indulgence, accord- 
ing to the same law, decreases in strength 
— at least relatively decreases. By these 
two efforts of the soul — exercising humil- 
ity and repressing pride — after hard fight- 
ing, humility obtains control over pride. 
Now let us suppose that this process con- 
tinues, and, if so, will not pride be finally 
worked completely out of the essence of 
the soul ? May not all evil tempers, by a 
similar process, or by multiplied processes, 
be eradicated from the soul? Weakening 



96 Light on the Pathway of Holiness, 

a feeling, actually or relatively ; getting, by 
hard fighting, the upper hand of a sinful 
tendency or temper, or lessening its power 
to overcome the will, does not, cannot take 
out of the essence of the soul its depraved 
tendency to indulge that sinful temper. 
So long as the essence of the soul is un- 
holy, the tendency to indulge that wicked 
feeling or temper must also remain. This 
tendency can only be removed by the de- 
struction of depravity; by a thorough, 
complete change in the moral nature of the 
soul itself. One may by his own efforts 
lessen the manifestations or even the feel- 
ing of pride, but he cannot thereby remove 
from the soul's essence its depraved tend- 
ency to pride. If he could, then any 
other sinful temper, and all sinful tempers, 
might be worked out of the soul by a sim- 
ilar process. Then the greater, deeper, and 



Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 97 

more difficult part of the salvation of a de- 
praved soul can be wrought out by human 
efforts and works. But would such a sal- 
vation be through the atoning and cleans- 
ing blood of Christ? or a salvation by 
the renewing power of the Holy Spirit? 
or a salvation by faith? Would it be a 
sanctification of the Spirit? Admit that 
the depraved state of a fallen soul may be 
changed by such a process, and the blood 
of Jesus may be wholly ignored in the 
theory of salvation. It is no longer essen- 
tial in order to cleanse, purify, and save.* 
But not so. Sinning against God incor- 
porates into the soul an alienation from 

* That noble body of divines who for three-fourths of 
a century have been charging Methodism with teaching 
Pelagianism, are themselves most stalwart Pelagians: 
for they teach that the depravity remaining after regen- 
eration is removed, and the complete salvation from sin 
effected, through faithfulness in good (human) works ! 



98 Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 

him; and that alienation is so inveterate 
that nothing short of divine power can 
reach and remove it. No amount of obe- 
dience in practical duties can cleanse — 
recreate — the soul in Christ Jesus. 

Education cannot implant poetic genius, 
nor inventive power, nor great talents of 
any kind. No more can it put its hand 
down into the soul and impart to it a holy 
nature. All that it can do is to develop 
existing powers. Even if the soul were 
stainless, and if there were no tempting, 
deceiving foes, education could not develop 
a soul, and conduct it safely through the 
ceaseless conflicts of its probation. It could 
not apprise the soul of subtle temptations ; 
of the approach of evil, nor energize it for 
sudden struggles with malignant enemies. 
When Satan enters a soul like a flood — 
when he insidiously attacks its most vul- 



Light on the Pathzvay of Holiness. 99 

rierable point — and when he holds up glit- 
tering proposals if it will " fall down and 
worship" him — what can education do? 
If in such crises the soul be without those 
moral forces and spiritual convictions which 
come only through the baptism of the Holy 
Spirit, all the power of education would 
be utterly useless. There must be there- 
fore, after sanctification, new states of moral 
purity communicated to the soul directly 
by the Holy Spirit. 

But as the need of a second, distinct 
blessing, by which the essence of the soul 
is changed from a state of sinfulness to one 
of holiness implies that the justified are 
not yet ready for heaven, many summarily 
dismiss the doctrine of sanctification. 

Morally, an infant is unfit for heaven. 
But in consideration of the atonement, it 
must not be lost should it die in infancy. 



ioo Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 

If not lost, it must be saved. If saved, it 
must be sanctified by the Holy Spirit, 
God therefore does sanctify the soul of an 
infant that he removes from earth. Infants 
that continue to live God does not thus 
sanctify, for the good reason that they are 
probationers, and must undergo its tests 
and discipline. True, he might arbitrarily 
give to those infants a nature holier than 
that of Gabriel. But should he do that, he 
would disqualify them for their trial, their 
triumph, and their reward. If a child 
lives, it must meet temptation; it must 
have set before it life and death, blessing 
and cursing; and it must choose deliber- 
ately for itself. But, says one, Why not 
sanctify the child from or before the hour 
of its birth, and give it greater power to 
overcome temptation ? But the purer a 
being is, the stronger must the temptation 



Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 101 

be by which it is assailed — the severer 
must be the test — in order to secure an 
adequate trial of its loyalty. Should God 
sanctify the soul of a child before its ac- 
countability, it would become necessary to 
increase its trials, to intensify its tempta- 
tions. But the thought of working salva- 
tion in the souls of probationers without 
their consent is wholly discordant with the 
plan of redeeming grace, which proposes 
to accomplish its glorious ends in co-opera- 
tion with the preference, choice, and obe- 
dience of the human will. 

An infant, if it dies, is sanctified and 
goes to heaven. If it lives, it must strug- 
gle through conviction for sin, repentance, 
justification, regeneration, sanctification, 
and glorification, up to eternal life. Just 
so it is with a justified soul. If a justified 
man dies, he is saved ; passes at once to 



102 Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 

heaven. The justified are partly prepared 
for heaven. Pardon of guilt, the favor of 
God, the adoption into the divine family, 
the change of all moral relations, power to 
meet all requirements and to war a good 
warfare, a good hope through grace, and 
the witness of the Spirit, are a part of the 
needed preparation. Those who are justi- 
fied possess all this. They are so far pre- 
pared for heaven that they cannot be sent 
to hell. But there is a great work of prep- 
aration that still needs to be accomplished. 
God is convicting them of the deep de- 
pravity of their hearts — showing them how 
that depravity must be removed — urging 
them to cherish desires for holiness, to 
make full surrender for it, to strengthen 
their wills to choose it, and their faith to 
claim and embrace it. A soul so hunger- 
ing after righteousness will certainly soon 



Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 103 

be filled. But suppose such a person should 
be called to die before he experienced the 
full salvation? God has seen in him the 
distinguished merit of struggling with de- 
graded affections, breaking from all cher- 
ished sins, and sundering his affections 
from unworthy objects. He has seen him 
contrite and penitent, deliberately choosing 
His service for life, renouncing every plea 
but mercy through the blood of the atone- 
ment, calmly trusting for all his wants in 
the merits of his Son, and heroically con- 
tending against all his spiritual enemies. 

Now in view of all this, God will most 
assuredly spread before his mind the charms 
of holiness, the process of full salvation, 
the motives for entire sanctification, and 
urgent reasons for its prompt embrace. 
The power of desire, of faith, and of will, 
in reference to this great blessing, may be 



104 Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 

greatly intensified, so that in the twinkling 
of an eye the great moral change may be 
wrought. God sees how that justified, re- 
generated soul has acted and resolved in 
the past, the self-denial he has undergone, 
and the loyalty he has evinced. These 
great considerations give to him a glorious 
claim on His divine sympathies. And as 
the opportunity of further demonstrating 
his loyalty is about to be forever removed, 
God can, without violating any principle 
of justice, do more for him under present 
circumstances than he could do if a longer 
probation were to be allowed to him. 
He might spread out before him motives 
to holiness more vividly, unfold to him its 
necessity more powerfully, and exhibit its 
charms more attractively. He might ener- 
gize his desire, will, and faith ; might break 
the power of temptation, and restrain the 



Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 105 

approach of the tempter. He might dis- 
robe the blinding attractions of sin of 
all their deceptions and fascinations. He 
might do all this to a degree he could not 
do if the period of his probation were to 
be extended. And also God could do this 
without in the least interfering with the 
man's free moral agency. This is so because 
such working on the part of God would 
only be intensifying that which is already 
the full aim, purpose, and bent of the re- 
generated man's nature. It would only be 
hastening, anticipating, that consummation 
which he eventually would have reached, 
by efforts more protracted and strides less 
rapid, in a longer probation. Upon those 
whose probation is prolonged, God cannot 
come in this extraordinary manner and cut 
the work short in righteousness. Their 
wills must be called into strenuous but 



io6 Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 

natural and normal exercise. No illumina- 
tion, or incitement, or afflatus must be al- 
lowed that will in the least constrain or 
restrain their volitions with reference to 
entire holiness. The will must contest 
every step of progress, not only from a 
state of transgression, through conviction 
up to justification, but also from justifica- 
tion up to sanctification and glorification. 

But we have seen in the former part of 
this discussion that the first sin that gained 
the consent of the will of an unfallen soul 
immediately passed down into the essence 
of that soul, changed all its moral rela- 
tions, and changed the character of that 
essence from holiness to unholiness. So 
soon as Eve sinned, her soul became a 
fallen, unholy, lost soul. The derange- 
ment thus introduced into it neither she 
nor any finite power could ever rectify. 



Light 011 the Pathway of Holiness. 107 

Hence, naturally, the important question 
arises with reference to this point: How 
is it with a soul sanctified by the Holy 
Spirit through the all-cleansing blood of 
the Redeemer? For example: suppose 
Brother A. now enjoys the blessing of 
sanctification, but should to-morrow, under 
powerful temptations, fall into some will- 
ful sin ; does that sin change the character 
of the essence of his soul, so that it shall 
lose its holiness and become unholy? Does 
that sin introduce there sinful tendencies, 
affinities for vice as vice? If a justified 
man sin, he has an Advocate with the 
Father, Jesus Christ the righteous ; and in 
deep penitence and earnest faith, he looks 
immediately to the merit and pleadings of 
that Advocate, that he would prevent the 
legitimate effects of that willful sin in rob- 
bing him of his state of justification. And 



108 Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 

the blood of Jesus intercepts and turns 
away the influence of that sin before it 
can change his moral relations, or damage 
either his justification or regeneration. 
And so, if a sanctified man sin, he too hath 
an Advocate with the Father, and he flies 
to the blood of atonement in humble reli- 
ance on its merit. That blood intercepts 
the influence of that sin before it can pass 
down into the essence of his soul and 
change its state of purity to a state of 
sinfulness ; before it can implant sinful 
tendencies. 

This is one of the most comforting and 
important discoveries which I think I have 
made in the process of the great work of 
sanctification. The parent clings sympa- 
thizingly to a child that has yielded in the 
moment of sudden and strong temptation. 
His pity, mercy, and tenderness, are then 



Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 109 

especially awakened. He cannot, for a mo- 
ment, consent that his offspring shall be 
given up. He still owns, claims, and un- 
dertakes for him. In like manner God 
clings to his spiritual child. He bears 
long with him, and is mrwilling to sur- 
render the glory of his inheritance in him. 
Notwithstanding his many imperfections, 
he exclaims, " How shall I give thee up ? 
how shall I deliver thee? how shall I 
make thee as Admah? how shall I set 
thee as Zeboim? Mine heart is turned 
within me." And all this he can do with- 
out in the least conniving at sin. For the 
blood of atonement intercepts the conse- 
quences and virus of sin on their way, 
traveling fast down to the substratum of 
the soul. That precious blood preserves 
the struggling, regenerated, but imperfect 
Christian in the family and favor of God. 



1 10 Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 

And so also is it with the man who has 
experienced the profound change of sancti- 
fication. In that high state of grace he 
may err, may often fail to keep in fall per- 
fection all the requisitions of the divine 
law — and yet by a prompt application to 
the blood of atonement, through confes- 
sion, penitence, and faith, may preserve 
■uninterruptedly his state of sanctification. 
All his sins of infirmity, all his needless 
failures to satisfy the perfection of the 
moral law, all his occasional and inad- 
vertent listening and yielding to the most 
subtle temptations and deceptions, need 
not for one instant change the state and 
character of the essence of his soul. For if 
a sanctified man sin, he hath an Advocate 
with the Father, Jesus Christ the right- 
eons; and the legitimate effects and con- 
sequences of that sin are ail prevented by 



Light on the Pathway of Holiness, 1 1 1 

the intervention of atoning blood, if he 
make prompt and earnest application there- 
unto. But for that blood, the first viola- 
tion of the divine law would change the 
character of the essence of his soul from 
being a holy essence to being an unholy 
essence. A perpetual use of the blood of 
atonement is a concomitant of the state of 
sanctification. There are many Christians 
who have really experienced the great 
change of the full salvation, but who have 
been driven back from their faith, their 
power, and their witness, by a perception 
of the discrepancy between their lives and 
the superlative requirements of that law 
that is u holy, just, and good." This dis- 
cernment has depressed them into doubt, 
distrust, satanic deceptions, and unutterable 
distress. But, Christian warrior, take fresh 
courage ! Do not thus be robbed of your 



112 Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 

grace ! Do not consent to be driven back 
from your high vantage ground into dark- 
ness and peril ! Though you should err in 
rnany things, and in all things come short 
of the full glory of God, still, standing in 
the fountain opened for sin and unclean- 
ness, you have nothing to fear, nothing to 
surrender. Cast not away your confidence. 
Hold fast whereunto you have attained. 
Give no place to doubt or to Satan, no, 
not for an instant. Eeckon yourself dead 
unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus 
Christ. So doing you will retain all your 
spiritual possessions and triumphs ; keep in 
unclouded splendor the glorious witness of 
the Holy Spirit, bearing witness with your 
spirit, to your entire sanctification. So do- 
ing you will ever be found walking in the 
gemmed pathway leading to the shining 
gates of light, beyond which you will so 



Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 113 

soon stand enraptured amid ineffable and 
imperishable glories. A sinless spirit, while 
passing its period of probation, is liable to 
fall and to be rained forever. A fallen 
soul, now sanctified through redeeming 
mercy, is a hundredfold more liable to the 
same dreadful destiny. But how incom- 
parably greater is the danger of the justi- 
fied man who halts in the state and period 
of regeneration, and does not press forward 
to the full salvation, to full redemption in 
the blood of the Lamb. He is in immi- 
nent danger of yielding, sinning, falling, 
and rising "to shame and everlasting con- 
tempt." 

And now, having given what seems to 
me to be a satisfactory solution of this dif- 
ficult subject, I commend my discourse to 
the all-sufficient blessing of that gracious 
Eedeemer whose blood now saves and pre- 



114 Light on the Pathway of Holiness. 

serves me. If I have spoken the truth as 
it is in Jesus, I trust he will bless it to the 
salvation of many, and to the general good 
of his Church universal. But if. notwith- 
standing my well-meant efforts, I have in 
any wise erred, I pray that he will coun- 
teract my errors by his preventing grace, 
and that, for the good of his people, and 
the glory of his holy name, he will send 
some teacher after me who will discrimi- 
nate my erroneous teaching, unfold the 
true process and science of salvation, and 
of holy living, and lead his spiritual Israel, 
of whatever name, up to a serener theology, 
and to a more constant and perfect expe- 
rience of redeeming grace. 

THE END. 



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